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It's now sadly clear that the greatest success of Jack Layton's 30-year political career — the historic NDP breakthrough in May's federal election, catapulting his party into official Opposition — was achieved with time rapidly running out on his life.

That Layton's moment of glory on the national stage was followed so swiftly by his death will leave chroniclers of Canadian political history forever pondering the what-ifs of a career cut short at such a promising juncture, and whether a man who unexpectedly became the country's "prime minister in-waiting" earlier this year might one day have been able — as unlikely as it seemed mere months ago — to complete the journey to the pinnacle of power.

Layton was just 61 when he was felled early Monday morning by an unidentified but aggressive cancer that took hold this summer following a battle last year with the same disease in his prostate.

When former NDP leader Ed Broadbent spoke just a few days ago with his ailing successor, what shone through that conversation for him was Layton's undying optimism — a trait, Broadbent said, that should be remembered both as the man's defining personal characteristic and as his most important and enduring contribution to Canadian political life.

"The legacy is one of integrity and optimism in politics," a shaken Broadbent told Postmedia News hours after the news emerged of Layton's death. "He gave people in our country — not just in our party — faith again in the importance of politics."

And for Broadbent, whose support as a party icon had been instrumental in Layton's rise to the NDP leadership in 2003, his last discussion with the man he'd mentored was a final testament to Layton's unbroken spirit.

The conversation "was entirely personal — it wasn't about politics. It was about his health," said Broadbent. "Although he did, as usual, sound — in words — optimistic, and was trying to make me feel at ease, I sensed that he was weak. And I sensed, at that time, that it was fatally so in my expectations. I did not believe that Jack would live for too much longer."

The latest cancer diagnosis had come in mid-July, barely a month after Layton and his wife Olivia Chow, a fellow NDP MP from Toronto, made their historic move into Stornoway, the official Ottawa residence of the country's Opposition leader.

No social democrat had ever occupied the place (or even come close to doing so), and Layton's arrival there on June 15 only fuelled hopes among the NDP faithful that even greater achievements awaited the party under his leadership.

But by the time a thin and weary-looking Layton revealed on July 25 he'd been stricken by a second cancer, and that he would require a leave of absence to fight the illness "so I can be back to fight for families when Parliament resumes" in September, there were widespread doubts he'd be able to fulfil that promise or to direct his party's ultimate quest: becoming Canada's government in a future election.

"I am hopeful and optimistic about the personal battle that lies before me in the weeks to come," Layton said at the time. "And I am very hopeful and optimistic that our party will continue to move forward. We will replace the Conservative government a few short years from now."

Layton will not lead that charge. And he finally did acknowledge that reality in an open letter to Canadians, released posthumously late Monday morning, in which he admitted "my treatment has not worked out as I hoped" — yet noted that "hope and optimism have defined my career" and urged Canada to become "a country of greater equality, justice and opportunity."

Layton's longtime municipal colleague David Miller, the former mayor of Toronto, described his deep sorrow at the loss of a man he believes could well have become Canada's first NDP prime minister.

"A month ago, when I saw his news conference, and saw how brave he was, I literally cried," Miller said Monday. "He had that spark that people suffering from cancer often have — an incredible courage and will to live, you could see it in him — but boy, he looked gravely ill. I felt it in my heart then."

Layton will be remembered — fondly by his supporters, respectfully by his opponents — for his effective, down-to-earth brand of progressive politics, and for his rise from the relative obscurity of Toronto's municipal government to become, at least in electoral terms, the most successful national leader in the 78-year history of the CCF-NDP franchise.

"It's a staggering loss to the party, of course, but rather more significantly to Canada," former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis, an early inspiration for Layton, said in an interview on Monday.

"There's no question that Jack Layton connected with Canadians more intensely than any politician of his generation — and indeed, any politician in recent memory," said Lewis, who is also the son of former federal NDP leader David Lewis.

"And he connected because of his essential human decency and kindness and generosity of spirit and the way in which he always engaged with the issues. He never had a stitch of malice in his soul towards other politicians or other people."

Roy Romanow, Saskatchewan's former NDP premier and an occasional adviser to the federal NDP, called Layton a "courageous optimist" and "absolutely indefatigable" leader who expertly "tapped into the values of Canadians" to push the NDP to "the precipice" of power.

"What one really saw (with Layton) was someone whose pragmatism was tempered by principle — he was able to manage both," said Romanow. "It made me think that sometimes in our case in Saskatchewan we fell the other way — more pragmatic than principled — and he brought a refreshing approach."

If the NDP without Layton manages to cement its position ahead of the Liberals at the threshold of power, perhaps alternating with the Conservatives in forming future governments, Layton will also be credited with permanently changing Canada's political landscape.

"If I have tried to bring anything to federal politics, it is the idea that hope and optimism should be at their heart," Layton said in his last public address, delivered the day he disclosed his new battle with cancer.

"We can look after each other better than we do today," the fiery speaker stated in a suddenly fragile, raspy voice. "We can have a fiscally responsible government. We can have a strong economy, greater equality, a clean environment. We can be a force for peace in the world."

He remained, he added, "as hopeful and optimistic about all of this as I was the day I began my political work, many years ago."

Politics for Layton was both a destiny and an inheritance.

Before becoming NDP leader, he was best known as a headline-grabbing, left-wing councillor at Toronto's city hall, fighting for affordable housing, a greener environment, the triumph of community over corporate interests. But Layton — born in Montreal in 1950 and raised in the nearby anglo bastion of Hudson — came from a family of Quebec politicians with surprisingly conservative leanings.

And his political roots reach even deeper into Canadian history. His great-grand-uncle, William Steeves, was a Father of Confederation from New Brunswick and a founding member of the Senate in 1867, the year Canada was born.

Layton's great-grandfather, Philip Layton, was an English immigrant who founded the Montreal Association for the Blind and championed the rights of the visually impaired.

"Even though I never knew my great-grandfather, I will not forget the stories handed down to me of his ability to organize and empower people," Layton wrote in his 2006 memoir-manifesto Speaking Out Louder: Ideas That Work For Canadians.

Layton's grandfather, Gilbert Layton, served in the Quebec cabinet of Union Nationale premier Maurice Duplessis before breaking from the conservative provincial party to support conscription in the Second World War.

And Layton's father, Robert, who died in 2002, was a Montreal-area Liberal activist in the 1960s and '70s before switching parties to become a Conservative MP from 1984 to 1993, serving as Brian Mulroney's minister of mines and national caucus chairman.

Today, Layton's son Michael is a Toronto city councillor, carrying on a rich family tradition of working in politics.

Educated in political science at McGill University, Jack Layton earned a PhD at York University and went on to work as a professor of politics at Ryerson University in the 1970s.

He married his first wife, Sally Halford, in 1969, and the couple had two children — Mike and Sarah — before their divorce in 1983. He married Chow, then a Toronto school board trustee, in 1988.

Layton counted famed McGill philosopher Charles Taylor — who ran unsuccessfully for the NDP in Montreal in the 1960s — as a prime shaper of his world view. And Layton, originally a Liberal like his father, had described how Pierre Trudeau's heavy-handed response to the FLQ Crisis in October 1970 led him to embrace the NDP and its leader, Tommy Douglas, who famously compared Trudeau's imposition of the War Measures Act to "using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut."

First elected to Toronto city council in 1982, Layton emerged as the leader of an influential NDP slate of municipal politicians. He headed the city's board of health and served a host of other municipal bodies over the years, then ran unsuccessfully as the left-wing candidate for Toronto's mayoralty in 1991.

He worked as a lecturer and environmental consultant before returning to Toronto council, then took a nationally prominent post as head of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

Miller, who served with Layton as a Toronto councillor before becoming the city's mayor in 2003, said Layton's time as head of the FCM gave him an invaluable insight into Canadian society and positioned him — almost uniquely in the country's political history — for a serious shot at becoming prime minister some day.

"He had a real chance, I think, for three reasons," Miller said Monday. "First of all, core Canadian values held by a vast majority of Canadians are represented by the NDP. That's why he made a breakthrough — not just because he was Jack Layton, but because he spoke to those values."

And along with Layton's "intuitive" understanding of his native Quebec — which "tremendously matters on the national stage," Miller said — the late NDP leader's term as Canada's national pointsman on municipal issues gave "huge depth to his understanding" of politics through local, provincial and national lenses.

"That is pretty rare in a national politician," observed Miller. "I think it put him in a position to have a real opportunity to win."

Layton lost twice as a federal NDP candidate in Toronto in the 1990s, but in January 2003 — with the crucial endorsement from Broadbent — succeeded Alexa McDonough as the national leader of the New Democrats.

"This was a man who wanted to achieve things," Broadbent said Monday. "I think that's why Canadians warmed to him in the last election. They sensed that here was a man that wasn't after some personal agenda. He wanted to work with other parties — he said that often — and he didn't abandon, in this process, his commitment to social democracy."

Layton's first campaign as federal leader in 2004 improved the NDP's popular vote and its seat count — including his own — from 14 to 19 in the House of Commons. But his performance was marred by a shrill accusation that prime minister Paul Martin was personally responsible for the deaths of homeless people because of Liberal cuts to affordable housing.

In a CBC interview during this year's election, Layton recalled the 2004 incident when asked to describe a significant mistake he'd made as a politician.

Layton said he was "so upset about the cancellation of the affordable housing program and the deaths due to homelessness that I said something that made it (sound) as though I was saying that Paul Martin somehow was responsible for those fatalities. And that was wrong to do."

Several months after the 2004 election, a budget deal struck between Layton and Martin kept the latter's minority government alive at a time when the new Conservative leader, Stephen Harper, and Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe were ready to defeat the Liberals.

By the end of 2005, however, Layton was aligning himself with Duceppe and Harper to bring down Martin's government over fresh revelations about the sponsorship scandal that had unfolded in the early 2000s.

The forcing of that election — scheduled for January 2006 — prompted Green party leader Elizabeth May to blame Layton for putting politics ahead of the planet and risking the collapse of an "urgent" climate change conference aimed at salvaging the Kyoto Protocol and set to begin in Montreal.

"I had known and liked Jack since he was on Toronto city council," May recalled in her 2009 book Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and the Crisis in Canadian Democracy. She wrote that he once told her "when he ran for leader of the NDP that he was only seeking a role in federal politics to deal with the climate crisis."

Now, she argued, Layton was set to "sabotage the most important global climate negotiations in history" and she "begged him" to delay the defeat of the Liberal government.

"It was to no avail," she wrote, highlighting the incident as proof that both Layton and Harper were willing to sacrifice the key Kyoto negotiations to prevent a Liberal publicity coup.

The 2006 election, which gave Harper a minority Conservative government, also pushed the number of NDP members to 29 — among them, Chow.

"For me, the most disappointing aspect of 2004 was that Olivia didn't win and wasn't able to join me right from the start in the House of Commons," Layton noted in his book. "So 2006 was certainly a thrilling result."

The 2008 election consolidated and extended the gains made in 2006, increasing Layton's caucus to 37 members. The party's growing support under Layton's direction and his own strong leadership numbers in national polling positioned the NDP well at a time when the Liberals were facing internal tensions at the end of Stephane Dion's time as leader.

But first came the coalition gambit. Layton was a key player in the failed bid to form an opposition governing alliance following the 2008 election. Before the plan collapsed amid Liberal infighting and after Harper had successfully prorogued Parliament, Layton was slated to become a senior cabinet minister in a Dion-led Liberal-NDP government backed by the Bloc Quebecois.

While the planned coalition never materialized, Layton strengthened his national profile over the next two years as he vied with new Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff for the best strategy and timing to defeat Harper's government.

Layton, occasionally referred to as "affable Jack," was nevertheless a combative partisan, at once critical of attack-style politics and a skilled practitioner of the dark art.

He was relentless in the House of Commons, in media scrums and on the campaign trail in pushing his political agenda, neatly summed up in his trademark promise to "make policies for the kitchen table, not the boardroom table."

Layton was in full stride as NDP leader by 2010. But in early February of that year, ahead of his appearance at a hastily called news conference in Ottawa, there was rampant speculation among media that he must be stepping down from the post. What else would the major announcement be?

Instead, Canadians learned that Layton was seriously ill.

"It's the same kind of prostate cancer that my father was diagnosed with 17 years ago," he told reporters. "His treatments were successful, and I intend to tackle this with the same determination that he did. Like my dad, I am a fighter. And I will beat this."

That fight appeared to be going well as Canadians approached another federal election this spring. But in early March — less than a month before Layton and the other party leaders would embark on an arduous six-week campaign — he was forced to endure a four-hour operation to repair a broken hip, the precise circumstances of the fracture never explained.

The state of Layton's health became a significant tactical issue in the days leading up to the 2011 election call. Who would compel a cancer patient recovering from hip surgery to hit the campaign trail? But Harper — his hand forced by a unanimous opposition motion finding the Conservatives in "contempt of Parliament" — dropped the writ on March 26 for a vote on May 2.

From the outset, Layton played down worries about his health and dismissed concerns he'd be unable to conduct an effective campaign.

"It's time for you to choose a prime minister who will help your family get ahead and put political games aside," he said in his first major speech of the race, in Edmonton. "Well friends, I'm running to be that prime minister."

Initial media reports about small turnouts at Layton campaign stops and the hobbling effects of his hip operation soon gave way to stories about Layton's energetic appearances before large, enthusiastic crowds — particularly in Quebec. The walking stick that seemed to reflect Layton's weaker, marginal position at the beginning of the election came to be seen as a symbol of his scrappiness, humility and sincerity.

Pollsters detected a Layton love-in taking shape among the electorate, with Quebec voters — finally weary of the Bloc's tired messaging — particularly drawn to the easy manner and street-smart French of the mustachioed NDP leader, who talked about in upbeat terms about creating "winning conditions" for federalism in Quebec.

At some unidentifiable moment in mid-April, as Canadians weighed their options ahead of what would prove to be a landmark May 2 vote, an idea had crystallized among an unprecedented portion of the country's voters that the ever-smiling chief of the NDP was the right man to lead the nation's government.

An "orange wave" led by Layton, affectionately nicknamed "Jacq" in his home province, began to roll across Quebec and threatened to recapture the Bloc's separatist stronghold for federalism.

The single most memorable moment of the 2011 campaign had been Layton's bulls-eye strike against Ignatieff during the English-language leaders' debate over the Liberal leader's dismal attendance record in the House of Commons. That sharp exchange between the ascendant Layton and Ignatieff, headed for free fall as it turned out, symbolized the pivotal red-to-orange shift of allegiance that took place among so many voters in the election.

The seismic shift would not be enough to catapult Layton and his New Democratic Party — a perennial also-ran in federal elections since its emergence from the CCF in 1961 — to power in Ottawa.

Yet Layton — all but written off as a serious contender in the early part of the election fight, his campaign initially dogged by doubts about his health and his party's relevance in the "two-way race" expected between Harper's Conservatives and Ignatieff's Liberals — was indeed poised to make history.

While Harper would secure the majority mandate his party had been pursuing for years, the remarkable rise of the Layton-led New Democrats was surely the most startling result of the election. Buoyed by Layton's unmatched personal popularity, the NDP won a stunning total of 103 seats — eclipsing the party's previous record of 43 — and elected 59 of Quebec's 75 MPs, obliterating the Bloc, relegating the Liberals to third place nationally for the first time in the history of Canada's "natural governing party," and seizing the role of Official Opposition for the NDP.

And while the Quebec results were truly earth-shaking, Layton's achievement on May 2 was so enormous that the NDP also elected more MPs from outside of that province — 44 — than the party had ever sent in total to the House of Commons.

"My friends, it's a historic night for New Democrats," a jubilant Layton said on election night. "Spring is here, my friends, and a new chapter begins.

"Tommy Douglas, our first leader, said 'dream no little dreams' and I've always taken that to heart," he added. "It's time to roll up our sleeves and get back to work, and let's not stop until the job is done."

Becoming Opposition leader proved to have its own challenges. Layton's Quebec caucus, packed with political neophytes and — at least nominally — former separatists, demanded special attention from a leader suddenly juggling more responsibility and a higher profile than any of his NDP predecessors.

And, as Canadians now know, he was also dealing with devastating news about his own health almost as soon as he'd settled into his new, centre-stage role in the political life of the country.

Political triumphs and setbacks, he noted, seem to tightly follow one another; personal achievements and disappointments, too.

"That has certainly happened to me," he wrote, "and, occasionally, the ups and downs were virtually simultaneous."

From the distant vantage of history, the height of Layton's life will appear to coincide precisely with its end. There may be some solace for his followers — and for all admiring Canadians — that Layton's death will be inextricably linked with his finest hour.

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